Alva's Virasat award to SPB, Manu Parekh to get Varna Virasat prize

The four-day Alva’s Virasat 2015, a festival of music and dance, will begin at Vivekananda Nagara in Puthige, Moodbidri, from December 24.

Briefing media persons here on Monday, Alva’s Education Foundation Chairman Dr Mohan Alva said eminent playback singer S P Balasubrahmanyam has been chosen for the Alva’s Virasat Award 2015. The award will be conferred on him on the first day of the Virasat. The Virasat award carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh and a citation.
Balasubrahmanyam, who entered playback singing with ‘Shree Shree Maryadaaramanna’ Telugu film, has so far sung over 35,000 songs in 15 languages in the last 40 years.

The Virasat will be inaugurated by Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Dr D Veerendra Heggade at 5.30 pm in the presence of Nitte University Chancellor N Vinay Hegde, Minister K Abhayachandra Jain and others on December 24.

Eminent artist Manu Parekh will be felicitated with the Alva's Varna Virasat award at the concluding ceremony of the Virasat on December 27.

Parekh is a multi-talented artist. He was design advisor for Handicraft and Handloom Export Corporation.

He has held solo exhibition of his paintings at Washington, New York, London, Ialy and Denmark. The Alva's Varna Virasat award will carry a cash prize of Rs 25,000 and a citation.

Musical fusion
For the art connoisseurs, the inaugural session will be followed by ‘Naadasurabhi’ - a special fusion of four violins that Mysore Nagaraj, Mysore Manjunath, Vidwans Ganesh and Kumaresh Chennai will play. Ramdas Palsule, Arun Kumar and Shivashankar Swamy will accompany them on tabla, special percussions and mridanga respectively.

S P Balasubrahmanyam and troupe will enthral the audience at 9 pm. The second day of Alva’s Virasat will see ‘Raagarangoli’ with Kadri Gopalnath on saxophone, Thanjavoor Govindarajan on thavil, Vikku Vinayakram on ghata, Vijay Ghate on tabla, Praveen Godkhindi on flute, Selva Ganesh on Khanjira and V Umesh on keyboard. Ustad Munawar Masoom and team from Mumbai will enthral the art lovers with qawwali and Sufi songs at 9 pm.

On December 26, percussion artist Shivamani will lead ‘Naadasangama’, a confluence which will have Harmeet Manseta on keyboard and U Rajesh on mandolin. Students of Alva's educational institutions will present a variety of dances.

On December 27—leading playback singers Vijay Prakash, Karthik and Mahalakshmi Iyer will render songs in ‘Sangeetha Vaibhava.’ This will be followed by a variety dances by Alva’s students.

Varna Virasat
Varna Virasat, a national-level painting camp, featuring 15 tribal artists has already been inaugurated at the Vidyagiri Nudisiri auditorium in Moodbidri.

About 20 contemporary artists will join them in the camp that will go on till December 27.

The tribal artists will bring out ‘Warli,’ ‘Gondu,’ ‘Bhil,’ ‘Pithora,’ ‘Madhubani,’ ‘Meenakari’ and ‘Kalamkari’ art pieces at the venue. In fact, the Alva’s institution has a collection of more than 4,000 paintings and art works created by painters and tribal artists at Varna Virasat since its inception.

Free bus arrangement has been made for art connoisseurs to reach the campus before and after the event from Moodbidri. The bus arrangement has been made from Nishmitha Towers to the venue of the event at 5 pm. The venue of Virasat also has a spacious vehicle parking lot.